Last night my new Sunday group met together for the first time to create sessions for a brand new Sunday campaign. Due to fluctuations in the player roster, the previous campaign fell through*, and this new one has taken its place.

I’ve already posted the campaign backstory here, but in summation, it’s a game of adventure, exploration, and intrigue in a New World across the ocean. The characters are part of a small colony, the very first on this newly-discovered continent across the western ocean. Two nations have joined together to build this colony, those being the “Enlightened Norsemen” N’Parthan Commonwealth and the Turkish-inspired nation of Khaaza-Ji, whose people are respectfully referred to as Northwardik and Ahzali, respectively. Three ships were sent out, two arrived, and the third was lost at sea. The third ship had most of the military folk on it who were supposed to guard the colony, so the last two weeks since arrival have been rough, as all in the colony have had to learn to handle themselves, should martial forces be needed.

Currently there are four players, and each of their characters in the game has a specialty at which they are considered the best. Evan (the new guy) is playing Milly Borghild, Northwardik, the “Mean” character. Alex, also in the Saturday game, is playing Ulrik Tolak, Northwardik, the “Battle” character. Scott, another player in the Saturday game, is playing Rassmas Thorgier, Northwardik, the “Scout” character. Finally, Drake (returning Sunday gamer) is playing Atallah Sevda, Ahzali, the “Risky” character.

There’s not much else to say about it at this point. We meet again in two weeks for the first full-on gaming session, and I’m pretty excited. I think we’ve got an awesome group.

* I still intend to try the Bloodstone campaign sometime in the future, possibly soon after I get over my upcoming Year of Nostalgia kick. As much as I’d like to, I doubt it will use the Burning Wheel rules, because it’s next to impossible to get my players interested in something so incredibly meaty.

UPDATE: I’ve decided to start a Story Hour thread over on the Savage Worlds forums. As the next sessions roll by, I’ll get creative and write up some stories of the games.

- Nathanael Phillip Cole

Due to the hectic nature of the last few weeks, I was unable to get an AP report up for the third session of our Saturday campaign. However, since the last two sessions have both been part of the same extended scenario, combining their reports makes it easier to collect my thoughts. So here we go!

The Cast

• Alex, playing the part of Captain Daylen Forgrun.
• Gaston, playing the part of Calvo Sotelovich.
• Nathanael (me), Arbiter, playing the part of Mihoaela Tatiana Kojimirin.
• Nievita, playing the part of Aeroica Mindal Tsvetkov.
• Scott, playing the part of Khazimir ibn Zalikahn.

Two Saturdays ago was the second session in our Undiscovered Countries campaign, using the Verses RPG rules system. In my last post on this game, I gave some details into the setup, the system, and the campaign premise, so I’ll skip all that and get right to the meat.

The Cast

• Alex, playing the part of Captain Daylen Forgrun.
• Gaston, playing the part of Calvo Sotelovich.
• Nathanael (me), Arbiter, playing the part of Mihoaela Tatiana Kojimirin.
• Nievita, playing the part of Aeroica Mindal Tsvetkov.
• Scott, playing the part of Khazimir ibn Zalikahn.

My gaming shelf happens to be located on the path through my house that I take to get to the bathroom (read: right outside the bathroom door), and I often grab a random book to read while doing the business. Over the past few weeks, this has sparked an idea that I’ve finally decided to make efforts towards fulfilling. My shelves are full of old games that I’m pretty sure are only kept around for purposes of nostalgia, and frankly, I’m getting tired of the feeling of sadness I feel every time I look at them and realize I’ll most likely never play them again.

So next year, starting in January of 2008, I’m gonna embark upon a personal crusade to give each and every one of those games a “Last Hurrah” before packing them away in a closet somewhere, or - heaven forbid! - giving them away to someone else who will find them more useful to their own games. I hate to part with them, as they led to some real good memories, but the thing is, I just don’t ever see any good new campaigns from them in the future, especially with the ways in which my gaming tastes have so drastically changed over the last few years.

Currently on the list:

• Alternity - specifically, Star*Drive and DarkMatter, although if there’s actually an interest I’d love to run the StarCraft setting too.
• Earthdawn - I am determined to run at least one of the modules I have.
• Midnight - I sadly don’t foresee any good campaigns growing out of this with my gaming groups.
• Nightbane - More mutation charts than you can shake a gazebo at
• Palladium Fantasy - 1st Edition, yo!
• Rifts (shudder)
• Shadowrun - 4th Edition. Mind you, I love this game, but I’m kinda tired of rules systems like this. I might keep this one around, though.
• Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (although I might just end up giving this away at Dragoncon)

I’m not sure which one I’ll start with, but I do foresee a series of mini-campaigns, one with each game. I think I’ll start with Alternity, doing a Star*Drive game and then a DarkMatter game, and who knows where I’ll go from there.

Also, I’ve got another set of AP reports coming for both last weekend’s Undiscovered Countries game and last night’s Warhammer FRP demo. I need to finish listening to the recording before I finalize the first one, and finish recovering from whatever freak sickness has overtaken me today to do either. The UC report is mostly finished, I’m just unclear on a few of the details.

- Nathanael Phillip Cole

Last night was the first official gathering for my Sunday group’s new Iron Kingdoms game. This campaign is entitled “Bloodstone: An Iron Kingdoms Western,” and is set on the edge of the Bloodstone Marches in a shady little prospector’s town called Ternon Crag. This game is very heavily influenced by the television show Deadwood.

This game also uses the Verses RPG rules currently in development by yours truly. I had originally intended on using The Burning Wheel as the system for this game, but after a bit of minor GM burnout on my part, I made the switch to Verses, for two main reasons. First, I just don’t have the time to dedicate towards mastering the Burning Wheel rules while simultaneously teaching them to others. Second, I want to give Verses a more versatile (pun intended) playtest. Currently it is being used in my other bi-weekly campaign, and I hope that by applying it to an already-established setting I can test its functionality with several new perspectives.

This past Saturday, July 21st, saw the first actual game-play session of our new campaign. Aside from the goal to have a buttload of fun, the purposes for this campaign are two: to give the Verses RPG rules a working progression towards completion through extended playtest, and to work as a unit to create a new campaign setting in which all involved can be personally invested. So far, after a character and setting jam session and one actual play session, the results are better than satisfactory. With this post, I’ll kick off a series of post-session Actual Play reports. Interested? Keep reading.

This weekend involved a lot of gaming, at least one game (or semblance thereof) per evening. Friday night featured a revisit of our ever-exciting D&D&D game (Dungeons and Dragons and Drunkards). In this game, we take shots as we do various game things, and we kill stuff. Sometimes, the stuff kills us. In this particular session, present were myself, Chris, Alex, Drake, and a brand new gamer Forrest, who has now been successfully converted. This one specific of the night pretty much made the weekend awesome; it’s not every day you get to see (and influence!) the seed of the hobby take root in another’s imagination. She really got into the back-story development of her character, so much that I have decided I will introduce her to better games very soon, before D&D gets in and takes too strong of a hold. I ran them all through a quick homemade scenario, and stuck with a theme of Monster Hunting, which will be revisited each time we return to the hopefully continuous game.

For the past few weeks, I’ve been running a Little Fears game on alternating Wednesdays. This has been a new experience for me, and if any of you have a history with this particular game then you probably know what I’m talking about here. If you’re not familiar with the subject matter, then it’s a bit difficult to explain.

Anyway, one of my players has written an Actual Play report on our jam session which was over a month ago. It’s a good read, and I’m hoping there will be more in this series of posts.

Thanks, Kat!

- Nathanael Phillip Cole